Legal Obligations: Definition, Types, Sources, Extinction

Legal Obligations: Definition & Elements

A mandatory legal relationship exists between two or more persons, where one can require the other to perform a certain prestation (performance).

Aspects of Legal Obligations

• Active: A person's right to require another to perform a specific benefit.
• Passive: The corresponding duty of another person to perform the required prestation.

Elements of Legal Obligations (3)

• Subjects: Can be natural or legal persons. The Creditor has the right to require the performance, and the Debtor must make the provision.
• Object: The benefit or behavior that the creditor has the right to demand from the debtor.
• Legal Link: The legal relationship connecting the two subjects, where one party must satisfy the creditor's benefit.

Types of Legal Obligations

Classification of Obligations (5)

• By Applicable Law:
  • Civil Obligations: Introduced by the Civil Code.
  • Commercial Obligations: Covered by business or commercial law.
• By Effectiveness of the Link:
  • Pure Obligations: Not subject to circumstances limiting their obligatory effects.
  • Conditional Obligations: Effectiveness depends on a future or past uncertain event.
    • Resolutory: The obligation is effective until the condition occurs.
    • Suspensive: The effects do not occur until the condition is met.
  • Term Obligations: Effects are produced at a specific deadline, date, or event.
• By Unity of Bond:
  • Unilateral: Only one party is required to perform.
  • Reciprocal: Both the creditor and debtor are subject to obligations towards each other (e.g., sale).
• By Type of Benefit (Prestation):
  • Obligations to Give: To deliver specific things (the debtor must deliver the agreed item).
  • Obligations to Do:
    • Obligations of Means: The debtor is obligated to perform an activity aiming for a result, but without guaranteeing it.
    • Obligations of Result: The debtor agrees upon achieving a specific goal.
• By Subjects (Plurality):
  • Joint (Mancomunada): Each individual debtor or creditor may require or pay only their share.
  • Solidary (Solidaria): Every creditor or debtor can demand or pay the entire benefit.
    • General Rule: Solidarity is not presumed unless expressly provided by law or agreement.

Sources of Legal Obligations

Sources (3)

• Law: Sometimes imposes obligations that a person must meet.
• Contract: Obligations arise from the express will of the parties.
• Wrongful Acts or Omissions: Any form of fault or negligence that entails the obligation to repair the damage caused.

Ending Legal Obligations

Extinction of Obligations (2 Main Methods)

1. Payment

Payment is the normal means of fulfilling obligations and involves carrying out an action or even an abstention. The payer is the debtor, and the recipient is the creditor.

Requirements for Payment to Extinguish the Obligation:

• Identity: The debtor must pay exactly what was agreed upon, not something of different or greater value.
• Integrity: The debt is not considered paid until full payment is made.
• Indivisibility: Payment must be made completely, unless agreed otherwise (e.g., payment over time).

Time of Payment:

• Pure Obligations: Immediately.
• Conditional or Term Obligations: When the agreed condition is met or the term arrives.

Place of Payment:

• Designated by the parties.
• If delivering a specific thing, at the place where the thing was located at the time the obligation was created.
• Ultimately, at the debtor's domicile.

2. Other Forms of Extinction

• Loss of the Thing Due: If the object of the obligation is lost or destroyed without the debtor's fault.
• Confusion: When the roles of creditor and debtor merge in the same person.
• Remission (Waiver): The creditor gratuitously forgives the debt.
• Payment in Kind (Dation in Payment): The creditor accepts something different from what was originally due as full payment.